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| Ms. Thanh Hien, a Tiktoker, meeting artisan in Thuy Xuan incense village (Hue City) |
Building a unique style
With the advantages of short duration, trendy music, and concise information, Tiktok is becoming the world’s leading video sharing social network. According to theverge.com, 40% of young people use Tiktok or Instagram instead of Google Search and Google Maps when they need to find dining and entertaining establishments.
In line with the contemporary trend, young people in Hue City are developing their interests in Tiktok. Prominent Tiktokers from the Ancient Capital are My beloved Hue cuisines (59.6K followers); Thanh Hien (28.8K followers); Eat up Hue cuisines (328.4K followers); Hue Review (tuanvu75hue, 110.8K followers); Hue OKLM (24.4K followers), Dear Tran! (38.2K followers); Hue Review (reviewhue75, 29.4K followers); Eating with Changchang (16.5K followers); What to eat in Hue (39.6K followers); Minh Mit Ren; Hey Ms. Thao! What to eat in Hue? (data up to April 27, 2023).
Together with the Vietnamese and international Tiktoker community, Tiktokers from Hue City are helping to preserve and spread the precious traditional cultural values of the Ancient Capital.
Each Tiktoker tries to build a unique style, leaving a mark in the hearts of viewers. To be more specific, Ms. Thanh Hien possesses the image of a gentle girl from Hue with a sweet, warm voice; My beloved Hue cuisines impresses viewers with well-thought-out videos, as well as bright and vivid colors; Eat up Hue cuisines has funny scenes and challenges; tuanvu75hue is funny and friendly…
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| The owner of the Tiktok channel “My beloved Hue cuisines”chating with a street vender selling sticky rice with coconut |
Tiktokers have made careful preparation in many aspects to create a quality video series, from ideation, script writing, model selection, costumes, makeup, filming, editing, to linking with other platforms to increase popularity.
Ms. Thanh Hien (tahixi), a Tiktoker, shared that she came to Tiktok because of the joy brought by this platform and the love for home cuisine. Ms. Hien does not place much emphasis on earnings and limits bookings to maintain objectivity for her video reviews.
Coming from Hue is an advantage
The Tiktokers from Hue have a great advantage over those coming from other places or foreign Tiktokers, which is the irreplaceable “territory” position. Their time, knowledge and experience of living in Hue will bring viewers to ‘every nook and cranny’ of the Ancient Capital.
From the beginning of 2022 until now, taking advantage of the strong spread of the platform, Tiktokers from Hue have helped local dishes that are on the “edge of being lost” such as banh duc mat (green plain rice flan), xoi banh day (round sticky rice cake), and Vietnamese steamed rice rolls with pickled shrimp, grow popular with a large number of young people who come to enjoy, support, and bring income to struggling street vendors.
The local accent is a disadvantage, but it is also an advantage. Hue’s voice is hard to hear for Southern and Northern viewers, but it brings a feeling of closeness and cuteness.
“Actually, I have heard many people say this issue before. It will be difficult for outsiders to hear Hue’s accent. I am also heavily influenced by local accent, but I will convert the local dialect words into standard language ones and insert subtitles into the video so that people can understand it better,” shared Ms. Thanh Hien.
When being asked if she should switch to a common voice when making Tiktok videos, Ms. Van, the owner of the Tiktok channel named My beloved Hue cuisine, who is currently living in Korea, replied: “I think the fact that Tiktokers change their voices to build their Channel is because of the audience that they target. I still want to keep Hue accent and my target audience is local people or Hue people living far away from home like me."
Another fact is that the Tiktok market in the Central Region is not as vibrant and explosive as in the South or the North, due to the reserved nature and fear of standing out in public of people in this region. But the good news is that now Tiktok's algorithm is prioritizing messages with depth, rich, diverse and valuable content to promote local tourism. Since then, Tiktokers from the Central Region have gradually been gaining popularity in the domestic Tiktok market.
“I have been to many places, learned about many cultures, and worked in the field of social marketing for nearly 10 years. Hence, I am very confident about the development of this channel. I will exploit the traditional elements in parallel with the modern ones to create an attractive and novelty for the topic of Hue cuisine. I hope there will be more and more famous and influential Tiktokers from Hue Tiktokers in the near future,” said Ms. Van.